Alcohol-related deaths surge in Colorado with a higher mortality rate than opioids

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Alcohol is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the U.S. Every year, more people die of alcohol-related causes than drug overdoses. But problems with alcohol often go overlooked.

  William Brangham looks at how this is affecting the western part of the country, and one state in particular.

• William Brangham:

  While alcohol is problematic everywhere, Colorado has one of the highest rates of alcohol-related deaths in the country. Drinking deaths in the state spiked 60 percent between 2018 and 2021. In 2022, more than 1,500 people in the state died from excessive drinking, a slight decline from earlier, but that is still 50 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

  When you also take into account deaths from chronic long-term conditions related to alcohol, the death toll doubles, a number that far exceeds the deaths from opioids. But as The Denver Post reported in a new four-part series, alcohol has not been treated with the same urgency as opioids. That series is called "Colorado's Quiet Killer."

  And reporter Meg Wingerter joins me now.

  Meg, thank you so much for being here.

  Your series is titled the "Quiet Killer." Why do you refer to it as quiet?

• Meg Wingerter, The Denver Post:

  It's quiet in the sense that it hasn't generated much attention.

  We hear about the number of people who are dying of opioids, which, of course, is a massive killer that we need to pay attention to. But there's not really the awareness that alcohol can also be deadly. When I was writing this series and interviewing people, other than people who specifically study alcohol, there was just not really this awareness that the death toll could be anything comparable, because, well, I mean, it's not something people talk about very much.

  Most — many people would really rather not admit if excessive drinking was what killed their loved one. So we just don't have the conversation.

• William Brangham:

  When we talk about categorizing deaths from alcohol, can you break those down for us? Are we talking about accidents where people are intoxicated? Is this chronic conditions? What are these deaths?

• Meg Wingerter:

  I'm glad you asked that, because, when I was interviewing people, often, what would come up is, they would assume that this was a lot of people dying in crashes or young people drinking themselves to death in one night.

  But what it is mostly is longer-term conditions, a lot of liver disease, some cancers, some heart conditions, deaths by suicide where people were intoxicated at the time, which makes you more impulsive, more likely to follow through in suicide if you were having those thoughts.

  So it does look different than what people expect. Accidents are a problem, but they're not the biggest source of the problem.

• William Brangham:

  Are there things that public health experts told you might help for the state to do to help bring these deaths down?

• Meg Wingerter:

  Well, there's no one magic thing that, if we do this, it will bring — make a huge impact on deaths, but there are a lot of small things that can nudge people.

  When alcohol taxes go up, people tend to somewhat reduce their consumption. When alcohol is not as convenient, people also will tend to drink a little bit less. There are cultural things, trying to give people alternatives and kind of normalize events where drinking isn't at the center of it.

  Now, none of those is going to completely fix the problem, but they each kind of give people a nudge toward reducing their consumption, which, over time, adds up to fewer people developing these chronic conditions.

• William Brangham:

  I mean, alcohol, as your reporting shows, is so ingrained in our culture.

  Even though we are in the middle of Dry January, I mean, it's kind of notable that we even have a month where we try to drink less as a culture. Were you surprised overall by the things that you found in your series?

• Meg Wingerter:

  Yes.

  I had actually just kind of stumbled across these numbers on alcohol-related deaths and looked at those, and that seemed high, compared it to the overdoses. But as I started talking to people more about the number of conditions that it's involved in, it makes sense.

  The odds an average drinker will die from alcohol are much lower than the odds an average illicit fentanyl user will die from the substance they're using. But so many people drink that it then adds up to this very large toll. And it is uncomfortable to talk about in a way that illicit drugs are not, because so many of us enjoy having a drink and don't necessarily want to hear that it could be a problem.

• William Brangham:

  All right, that is Meg Wingerter of The Denver Post.

  Thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

• Meg Wingerter:

  Thank you for having me.

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